http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,7211...=rss.index

I'm always a little leery about hot-linking various stuff from the web on forums, but this article from Wired News was HYSTERICAL!! How many of these complainer-types do YOU see on a regular basis?

dathon

Report is not ready yet. So I'm posting a short summary here :

I went the early aggression way starting with japan. Toku was dead by 415 BC. I turtled for a while then went for russia. Peter was no real threat but the war took some time. One of the russian cities had both the pyramids and the colossus when I was close from getting banking and mercantilism. That made the game way too easy. Gandhi was the most advanced of the AI and managed to pick up liberlalism before me (2 turns). I went for him next and after finishing him, I realized I didn't have enough lands to trigger domination. With cavs, I assaulted china and got my dom victory in 1772 AD

The worst I had to fight in my territory was a landing of 6 units that costed me a village. But I had fun this being my first always war game.

Great game! Kudos to Sirian for a very nice setup on this one.

I *just* finished this one on my lunch hour. 20 hours of game play is hard for me to squeeze in, even over 4 weeks.

Final result: Domination in 1827. Report to follow.

Our first Warlords tournament game is now open.

Well I managed to break the horse rule in this one: it was an attack on Shanghai, played after I'd got in from a jam session. I'd had a few beers, but no . Yet I contrived to attack and take the city and only realise afterwards that I must have had 7 or 8 horse to 9 non-horse. I'd set up a second force at Beijing similarly, but, realising my error, I sent a cat away from the stack (to its inevitable death).

Otherwise, it was an enjoyable challenge for me (never played AW before) and a Domination win in 1855. Took Toku first, then reduced Peter to two cities on opposite sides of the world. Made a mistake in going after Huang next: he needed curbing, but I thought Cyrus's core was on a separate island, but this was wrong, so I ended up meeting more resistance than planned. Attacking Gandhi, who twice made me run a scramble defence in old Russia, would have been the better option.

The only downside was the loss of meaningful interaction with the AI. This meant the game played like (an unusual) first person shooter. I missed the whole trading, begging and bribing game quite a lot.

I was going to play this as a private game, but the game was so fun that I decided to post this summary, even if only to thank Sirian for setting up such a fun scenario.

Remembering the power of Keshiks from the no-promotions SG, I intended to start with some early aggression based on Keshiks, and proceed as quickly as my economy would allow. That plan worked out quite well, allowing me to conquer enemies at a slow, but steady pace, while maintaining slight technological edge.

At the start, I left production on the Worker, but switched research to Agriculture, because I'd need it to connect rice, and it would make Animal Husbandry cheaper. The barbarians were turned off, so I didn't have to worry about military protection for my island. My second city went in the same location as everybody else's to immediately connect the horses. This city became cottage center. The third city was a production center in the south-west with as many forest and grassland tiles as possible while keeping the city coastal. Fourth city was built much later to complete cultural control of my continent. It went on the sourthern shore with no food resources, but several grasslands in its radius. I founded as few cities as possible, because with no city razing, I'd have too many cities anyway.

My early research went into Agriculture -> AH (horses and pasture) -> Fishing -> Sailing (Galleys) -> Pottery (Cottages) -> Mining -> BW (copper, which wasn't there) -> Writing (Libraries) -> IW (iron) -> Mysticism -> HBR.

Meanwhile, I met Toku in 1270BC, when his Hinduism had spread to me, and noticed his borders to the north-east. I immediately attacked him with Chariots, facing mainly warriors and archers. First city fell in 685BC and, with a couple swords to soften archer defenses, Japan was destroyed in 445BC.

Kyoto became my main production center, building most of my military. Karakarum and Turfan (in western forests) also trained some units, but focused largely on missionaries and infrastructure. The rest of the cities built only infrastructure for the entire duration of the game, trying to keep my economy afloat. I didn't cut any non-hill forests, which might have been a mistake, relying on whip for production.

The main challenge was keeping up with AIs technologically, because my research rate fell to 0 after conquering Japan and remained in the 20-30% range for a large portion of the game. One of my problems was discovering CoL (560AD) and Currency (1055AD) relatively late, because I was focusing on military techs, ignoring CS. My military priorities included Feudalism (1148AD), Machinery, Guilds (1310AD), Banking (for Mercantilism), Optics (1490AD, after I got tired of losing too many Galleys to Caravels), and, finally, Military Tradition in 1628AD, followed by Gunpowder in 1643.

During this time, my military campaign proceeded at a slow, but steady, pace. Russia was crippled using Keshiks and Cats when I captured its southern half up to and including Moscow by 770AD. This left Russia with a few small cities, but no workers or improved tiles. After that I turned my attention east, capturing all of western China with Keshiks (and later Knights) + Cats (and some axes/spears for defense) against ancient units. Western China and all of Persia were captured with Knights + Cats against Longbows. Cyrus had Engineering for a while, but I saw only one Pikeman. After that I came back to finish off Russia and started attacking Gandhi with Cavalry + Cats v. Longbows and Pikes, but a few border expansions gave put me over domination threshold in 1676, right after I've captured my first Indian city.

Domination Victory in 1676AD.

I had some good luck because Persia and China were at war when I found them, but no cities changed hands and they've made peace shortly after I had landed a couple of units on their continent. A large portion of my losses was due to terrible tactics (sending units one at a time through enemy territory, losing pillaging stacks by splitting them, attacking a Russian city with a stack that was too small, etc.), so I should have been able to win even faster, but 1676 is still not too bad.

This game forced a very unusual game plan, with CS and Liberalism made worthless by variant rules and military dominated by mounted units. I want to again thank Sirian for a very fun experience. (Fun enough to convince me to return to CIV for a few games. )

SGOTM 2 is scheduled to end at the end of November. There is a team of RBers playing, under the team name "The Real Ms. Beyond", including our captain regoarrarr, BeefontheBone, Compromise, ruff_hi, Snaproll, EL_OSO, Zalson and I. There are also a number of other RB members playing on other teams as well.

Now, SGOTM 3 as been announced. Information and signups are found here. If you are interested, you can sign up, following the template laid out by AlanH. If you have a group of friends you would like the play with, you can signup with them. If you wish to be sorted out into a random team, you can do that too. Furthermore, it is unlikely that all eight of the members we have on the team now will continue on to SGOTM 3. If anyone has any interest on joining us (if we decide to continue with SGOTM 3), let us know in this thread. Previous Ms. Beyond members will probably get first dibs at the team.

Something that may dampen interest in this SGOTM for RB members is the use of the HoF Mod. I am not certain on this, but players may HAVE to use this while playing. We could probably discuss whether we wish to continue to have a RB team in this thread. It would be rather pointless to discuss in the SGOTM 2 thread, especially since other teams cannot access it.

-Kodii

EDIT: Another possible discussion topic would be whether to play using Vanilla or Warlords...

http://uberfish.atspace.com/ep9.html

Epic 9.

I didn't play well. I barely thought about the game, played mostly at night on autopilot and just took the game as it came. I started moving the scout north to put the hut: maps. Stone. I kept research on Animal Husbandry. I foolishly thought I'd needed to know the horse location quickly as not to lose out on a horse resource. I started producing a worker first.
I popped Myst from a hut early on with my scout who went on to quickly scout the entire island.

Animal Husbandry -> Agriculture (for the rice) -> mining -> pottery -> bronze working -> iron working -> masonry
Worker -> barracks -> settler (when Kara reached size 3) -> granary -> worker -> warrior -> warrior -> settler

My second city Was on the coast, between horses and dyes. Judaism is FIDAL.



I spot Red borders to my northeast but can't make contact yet. Plan: get galleys and Keshiks and attack. I manage to build Stonehenge in my capital in 715 BC. In 505 BC a spying galley of mine spots something interesting. Japanese are the red borders, and they founded Judaism on my doorstep - in Osaka as the Holy Judaic City. WOW. I could get a religion this way as Japan is about 10% weaker than I am. I land 1 axeman and 1 scout to cause some turmoil. The turmoil consists of my Axe capturing the Ice village Edo. Keshiks are now starting to get produced to go for Osaka - Judaism Holy city. For that I delay The Great Lighthouse in my capital. I manage to finally take Osaka in 295 BC. Immediately Judaism spreads to Karakorum.



I manage to get the great lighthouse in 265 BC. I now revolt to Judaism, which has already spread to 3 of my 6 cities. And Osaka is the holy city - which has great consequences. Cyrus is also Judaic and I get to meet him through this. He's stronger than I am but not close enough to threaten me.
Osaka riots, Japan keeps pushing me on his island and the economy is hurting because of the extra cities which do not contribute much yet. But I cannot rest until I own the Japanese mainland. And that will only increase my economic problems while I still need to complete the conquest of my own island. And the unit production takes up slots that I could have used for other stuff. I told you that I wasn't thinking.

In 100 BC the Chinese city of Beijing gets Judaic and I meet Qin that way. The conquest of Japan is slow and expensive but I do make progress. I manage to capture all Japans tiny good-for-nothing cities in 20 AD. Now only the capital to go. I am not strong enough to do that. The Stonehenge GPP give me a Prophet who sails to Osaka to build the Temple of Salomon. Notice the disturbed displaY? That's my video-card which was dying at that moment. Also visible are the pressure Osaka is under, lost Satsuma, Judaic enemies and the funny map because of that.



The remainder of the game I've played on my slow laptop which isn't even Civ 4 compatible, but plays it anyway.

I retake Satsuma and miss the Pyramids by a handful of turns. I wondered why my new cities didn't seem to get a lot of culture from stonehenge. I figured that Stonehenge either was a continental wonder or that it needed a religion to function overseas. I wasn't thinking, didn't I tell you ? I had already researched Calendar and hadn't even realised that would obsolete Stonehenge.
With the Pyramids wonder I could hold out a little longer. My economy was going down fairly fast, but not alarmingly yet. However, better to be safe than sorry so I went CoL and then to Feudalism for Vassalage. In 275 AD the Colossus (I had no copper) was gone. I sailed with some galleys around to try to get circumnavigation bonus - it was obvious to me that I'd see a lot of naval combat and I desperately wanted the bonus. During those trips I met Russia on an icy island with 2 fish and 1 whale. And hills. Not a bad spot really. I decide that I'd take it sooner or later.



The galley went on to map the core of Russia and then he met India. I was ahead in score of everybody, but I was stretched. I managed to get the Hanging Gardens. I kept building up and not much changed until I circumnavigated the globe, without circumnavigating the globe.... There still was a large gap but apparently it counted. You don't hear me complain.



Research was headed to Optics to focus on naval units.
I found this funny - Those Indian and Persian settlers stayed there -not building a city- for very long.



I finally took Kyoto in 1154 AD. And I took that Russian Ice town with fish and Whales in 1328 AD. Immediately converted to Judaism and with a lighthouse, mined hills it became a very important city later on. First as a base of operations for pillagers in Russia and later on (drydock, factory, power plant, engineer rushed Iron Works) as my main builder of ships.
I accidently founded Islam as well. I used a random Engineer to construct the Spiral Minaret. Kyoto got the Forbidden Palace.
1655 AD - I now had control of my own island, of former Japan and of that island in the north. My economy was doing fairly well and I led everybody is score. I was not in danger of being conquered and I had secured the West by placing 3 galleys south of Russia that stopped all ships. I was close to frigates. Time for a plan.
But I didn't think; I just went autopilot without a plan. I just explored with my boats who were then sunk by my enemies and then I wasted more resources to build them again. I landed units in groups of 2 and 3 to pillage tiles and after 1 or 2 at max they were killed, so I build some more. I didn't manage my cities well and several were far past the happy-cap without any reason. To cut it short: I stalled while my enemies didn't. I first noticed Emancipation unhappyness in 1812 AD, but it could have been there already a long time - I didn't pay attention. I went happily on my way, fighting frigates with frigates just because I could and to (too weakly) try to get naval supremacy.

I sort of woke up in 1855 AD when my frigates were attacked by Chinese Ironclads. I did a checkup on everything and saw that I was at least 4 techs behind the tech-leader. And losing. My frigates and galleons were killed of within a couple of turns and my safety would follow shortly. And what did I do? - build Wall Street and factories. And saving money.
1872 - With my last frigate-fleet I attacked a desert island in my south. It was a stepping stone to Russia and a natural passage to India. Russia was not ahead of me and rather weak. It gave me no difficulties capturing it. It was exactly 6 tiles from my continental city of New Sarai. 6 tiles = the distance of my future transports.



I went on to Rostov on Russia's southern finger of land. And then slowly to Novgorod (Northwest of Orenburg). Rostov also was 6 tiles away from Orenburg. A natural border and defensive point for naval warfare.
My outdated frigates (which had escaped the turkey-shoot) managed to sink a fully filled Persian transport near my Japan and that saved my lands from conquest there. Persia already had Artillery. I did not. Another sign that I was playing badly.
And Gandhi landed 3 cavs + 1 artillery next to longbow defended Old Sarai after killing of my blockading frigates and ironclads with destroyers. Old Sarai was first ring of my capital. Deep trouble.
I fought them off with Infantry, but barely lost.



I did take Novgorod in Russia, and had plans to move further north. If I could take Russia I had a very safe west border. Moscow is reachable. Combustion in 1887 gets me back naval-warfare wise. destroyers. And not a moment too soon. Most of my fleet was now on the bottom of the sea. Most of my workboats were destroyed. Most of the visible ships were enemy ships. I upgraded the only 2 ironclads that I had left to destroyers and many (if not all) coastal cities started building destroyers to try to regain the domination of the seas. Yakutsk (ice-whale-fish city) was set to Mt Rushmore.
My ships were still losing battles, but slowly I was able to outbuild my enemies and due to the geography and my circumnavigation bonus I was able to protect my damaged ships while striking my enemies' damaged ships. I slowly took back control of the seas.

I set research to Rocketry - Gunships were needed. Cavs didn't make it against Infantry that my enemies now had. And I only had cannons, no artillery yet. The others had had that for at least 50 years already. My sea-dominance kept me safe, sinking more than a handful of fully loaded transports before they came too close. Especially Persia and China suffered from that. The stats showed that at that moment in the game I had outkilled galleys 13-4, caravels 17-3, galleons 11-2, frigates 24-21, ironclads
That allowed me to focus my conquest on Russia and later India.



With cannons, cavs and infantry I just captured Moscow in 1924 AD. I focussed my attention to 1 more Russian city - Yaroslavl. It would be a perfect crossing point for my ships. It fell in 1929AD. It was a valuable canal as well as a good land-blockader. It was under pressure badly and IIRC it fell once, but Russia simply was too weak now to stop me.



Russia was no factor in the game anymore, just like Japan wasn't. India, Persia and China were. Not really militarily, but more tech-wise. Perhaps they could win a space race or a UN-vote. Were those victory conditions on ? I didn't know and I didn't realise it while playing. I wasn't thinking, just doing stuff on the autopilot.

1939 AD - a scare. Gandhi buils SS casing. WTF ?? I need to stop him. Too bad I am 33 turns from flight and cavs aren't going to cut it. O.K. perhaps some lonely island city but not a core city. I took Lahore with artuillery and cavalry. Lahore was just West of Rostov.
With 101 turns to go Gandhi had finished 3 SS casing parts. NOT GOOD.



A lot to see. First: I did manage to take Bombay (close to Delhi) with cavs. I have 92 turns left. I just learned flight and that means Gunships. It's 01:43 am. I bypassed Khabarovsk as it didn't interest me. India needs to be stopped, and soon. By bombing the roads I was able to stop all Indian counterattacks dead in its tracks. Bombay never really became a city, but it kept the Indians busy for many turns. India basically stopped running away in the Space Race. But there were other Space-competitors. China for example. I knew I had to fight an away game now. I geared all my core cities to units. Samarqand got West Point.



I was able to take a bite out of China (and Japan) in 1970 AD. A nice natural land-bridge again. The war with India had come to a grinding halt and now I was focussing on China and Persia. I also captured the Russian town of Khabarovsk later on. I still had no idea how to win. I first needed to stop any Space Ships. And the only way to do was to conquer cities to harm production.



Beijing in 1982 hurt China a lot. Later on that city flipped to the Persians. Qin had already build 5 SS parts by then. I got tanks in 1985 and started building a lot. I had already a mountain of gunships to comply with the game rules. I noticed I had 44% population (very close to Domination). I had 39% of the land and needed 66%. I finally had a victory goal. I started picking up the Russian conquest again. With success. Also notice the gains in Western Persia and Norhern China. India stayed fixed.



After mopping up mainland Russia and a large portion of Persia I was on route. I certainly needed mainland China and some parts of India. Red arrows are completed conquests. Green are planned conquests. I need to hurry as I only have 30 turns left. I up the culture to 50% and research to 0%. Nothing to research as I can get nothing quickly enough.



With 26 turns left I have 55.95% Land area. 10.05% to go.
The cities fall surprisingly quickly. I've started to mass-produce bombers. I first bomb them down to 0% defensive bonus (mostly with naval bombardemnts) and then mass-bomb the units in them. After which the gunships and tanks kill the last defenders off. And because I lose few units I don't need to build many replacements so more bombers it is for faster conquest.
With 20 turns to go I have 61.44%.
With 12 turns I have 64.08%.
With 12 turns to go Delhi falls - liberating Bombay's culture and pushing me over the 66% mark.

I have won a Domination victory.
I am Lech Walesa.
I have 8472 points.

The report is at the typical location - www.kendter.com.

I didn't enjoy this epic. When it first started it wasn't bad, but once frigates appeared in decent numbers and kept bombarding my cities it got tiresome fast. At this point I starting missing landings, and I think it was because I had getting overloaded by the bombardments.

The marble restriction turned out way too much for me, as I found Russia late. Losing the Great Library and not being able to get Taj Mahal was too much.

After this game I know I won't participate in any more AW mostly water games.

I hope future games outright ban the Oracle, rather then this doublers headache.